I Was Never Deaf Or Blind To Her Music
by ilurandir
Summary: Paul and Laura are reunited again for the first time after Chris's Death, almost 7 years ago. Their friendship feels fragile to begin with - can it withstand the weight of everything that's settled on their shoulders after all these years? Please r


It occurred to Laura that it had been a very long time since she and Paul were alone together. Certainly not for several years – back to the days of the Noize. And it was nice. If she could call anyone a friend, it would be Paul – and not just because Paul was nice to everyone – easy to "be friends" with, even if Paul didn't really consider it that way – he was a bit of a loner, Laura knew, but she had always felt that there was something more than just acquaintance between then.

They talked about Tom and Barry and the band – the direction that that was going. Paul broke his usual long silences with an unexpected gushing about how good the lads were doing. She noticed how his train of thought would linger on Barry – Baz, as Paul called him – more than on Tom, even though she knew that Paul's passion was guitar. She felt that his attention should be more focused on that aspect, considering that that was mainly what Zak had hired him to do. Teach the boys about the instruments, and write them a couple of songs to get them started...

"He reminds me of Chris, a little," Laura said, setting her brandy on the table, the ice clinking softly against the sides of the glass. She was feeling slightly heady from the alcohol and she was enjoying it immensely.

Paul's eyes met hers across the table and she saw the way his face closed off, the darkening of his eyes – startling now in the shadows the overhead light cast on both their faces, shadowing them in a rather unattractive way.

"Not really," Paul answered, looking away from her and taking a long drink from the bottle. He'd poured her a glass – always the gentleman.

"No, no," she said, trying to fix her words, make them less biting perhaps, "I mean just... you know, he's around the same age, and kind of wild like that..."

"I don't see it," Paul answered, although she could tell by his slight hesitation that he _did_ see it. He sighed and put the bottle down on the table, pushing it away from his slightly, watching the amber-coloured liquid swirl inside the dark confines of the bottle, already drained to beneath the label, in the dim light of the kitchen.

"You're still angry at me," Laura said. She didn't blame him, not really, but it hurt a little. Paul was so secretive. He rarely ever said anything bad to someone's face, or even behind their back. Sometimes, she thought, she used him a little – because she knew he would never say anything about her; or how she had taken Chris from Paul, even though she could see there was something special in their relationship, for the first time in Paul's life – but then Chris had taken an interest in her, and she hadn't wanted to refuse. Chris was wild and unpredictable yes, but that had excited her at the time. She had been younger then and a little stupid, only nineteen or twenty, so she hadn't really thought about the consequences... but then again, neither had Chris, so it wasn't entirely her fault. Still, on her returning to Humbleden less than three days ago, she had thought that maybe Paul had forgiven her. They hadn't really left on bad terms all those years ago but they hadn't made up either.

Paul wouldn't look at her. He didn't say anything – probably because he didn't trust himself to. He ran a nail down the side of the bottle so it rang, slightly musically, in the air between them.

"So, has there been anyone else? Anyone special?" she asked, rather softly – afraid that she had ruined things.

"There's been lots of 'anyone else's'" Paul said, "But no one in particular, you know."

She pushed her hair back behind her shoulder and watched him closely. When he finally looked up at her she smiled sadly at him. It faded as soon as it had come. She couldn't apologize because she had wanted it... and if Chris was still alive, she had to admit that she would have been reluctant to give him up... and because Laura Ashworth had never really been one to apologize for her actions – mistake or otherwise. There were too many anyway.

The moment was broken when Paul looked away and lifted his hips from the chair to extract his pack of fags from his pocket. "Fuck," he swore, and Laura could practically see the room spinning around him as he steadied himself with his elbows on the table and took a cigarette out of the pack, placing it between his lips then holding the fags out to her.

Both of their eyes strayed to the Embassy pack in the centre of the table, smoking swirling up and around them. Half of the letters were scratched out with permanent marker – Barry's doing – so that it now read 'Easy'. Paul let out a sudden laugh and Laura raised her eyebrows at him.

"Fuck, I'm drunk," Paul said, and it was such a juvenile thing to say that the two of them burst out laughing. They stopped rather quickly. It was just the two of them in the house at the moment, so it sounded almost eerie. Nick had carted the twins off to some doctor's thing with Eddie for a check-up that Zak had requested. ('To make sure his money won't be going to waste,' Paul thought, a little disgustedly. He didn't want something going wrong with the twins and having it cost him.)

"Are you still going to do that Exploitation article?" Paul asked after a moment, suddenly serious.

"Well, yes..." she said, not knowing that in a few hours time, Zak would call and take her on the payroll. Years later, what everyone said – that she accepted to be closer to the twins – was only half true. Only Laura knew that she'd decided not to write the article for Paul's sake. She could sense his excitement about the band – possibly the only thing that had really meant something to him since Chris Dervish and the Noize, and she felt that, on some level, she owed it to him to not get the public up in arms about the exploitation (because that _was_ what it was) of Tom and Barry.

Paul shrugged – there was really nothing he could do to stop her – and stood up, his hand on the back of the chair for support before he moved to the doorway. She stood up as well, and when he looked back at her, he could see the sudden urgency in her face. That was something that had always intrigued him about Laura, and she could tell, because she sensed those kinds of things about men... what she didn't know, however, was that Paul understood how much she hated to be alone – rejected – forsaken.

"Are you coming?" he asked, and he saw her shoulders seem to smooth out, less hard and tense against the outline of the dark window. When she met him in the doorway, holding her glass and catching up the neck of the bottle he turned the light off and they ventured out into the dark hallway, close together for support and, in some way, like two children who didn't like to be alone in the dark.

The sitting room was lit by the table lamp in the far corner and Laura collapsed on the couch and poured herself another glass, spilling some over her hand and licking it from her fingers as her eyes flickered up to Paul. He was watching her, but not hungrily like she was so used to men watching her. Perhaps it was because she knew that Paul didn't want her like that, that she felt she could be close friends with him... closer if she hadn't fucked up so badly in the past. She'd fucked up in Paul's opinion anyway... and she'd never been able to keep her female friends. They were few, far between, and unmemorable.

He reached out and took the bottle, sitting next to her and tipping it back. She watched his eyes flicker down as he drank, his eyelashes casting faint shadows on his cheekbones, before he leaned forward and set the bottle down on the floor between them.

"Going to feel this in the morning," he said, running his fingers from the bridge of his nose across his cheek. Unable to feel it, she guessed, because that was how she felt.

She twisted herself around, drawing her legs up under her on the couch and watching him over the rim of her glass as she drank. She'd always found Paul quite attractive, even though she knew that women weren't his preference. This was suddenly something that she looked at as a challenge. Even though, if she was sober, she wouldn't had dreamed of it, because it was half of what made her feel comfortable with him was that there wasn't a chance they would sleep together.

Which was why when Paul looked away from the lamp that had captivated his attention for a moment, and met her eyes, about to speak, that he stopped abruptly and tensed a little, his eyes searching her face.

Neither one would ever understand why they did what they did after that. Laura leaned in, her eyes locked on his until they were close enough to feel each other's breath – smelling of liquor and perhaps giving them a reason, in that moment, why it was okay. Her eyes flickered down to his mouth and she kissed him, putting her glass down on the floor.

Paul's mouth parted under hers, but not because he wanted her. That would come later, when her body, feeling far too small; soft compared to the men he'd had over him, pressed against him... and even then, he wasn't really sure if that was right.

Maybe it was just because they were drunk, and adolescent in that moment – both of them adrift in a sea of sex that meant nothing and reaching out for a feeling that neither of them could really quite grasp. They'd experienced the shuddering climaxes that they strived for, and stretched their hands out towards the glimmers of feeling or meaning that were fleeting and bright against the loneliness that threatened to engulf them sometimes. Maybe it was just because they'd both gone too long without a fuck, and at this point and time it seemed like this brief relationship would be without consequence – and a way to keep them going until the next 'someone' came along.

They never parted completely – always a hand somewhere on the other, clutching at clothes, or limbs, or hair, stopping briefly to kiss and taste the saltiness of each other's skin on their way up the stairs to Paul's room.

Paul wasn't quite as gentle as she had imagined he would be. His hands were careful, and he never hurt her, but it was clear that he was used to being with people stronger than her – who could overpower him. Her fingers held his white shoulders as he moved over her, both of them gasping and tensing, her legs cradling him between her hips.

In the morning, Laura awoke and thought, immediately, that Paul had been right. That familiar, cotton-mouthed, slightly sick hangover feeling had descended over her, and the mattress dipped a little. She watched Paul stand, white skin even paler looking against the pale, rainy morning light. He hurried into his clothes, and he felt her stomach knot. This wasn't the first time she felt the scene would be complete only with the man pressing some dirty bills in to her hand.

He knew she was awake, and she could tell because of the way he wasn't looking at her. She sat up, the white sheets falling to her hips, exposing her breasts only partially covered by her hair. He stopped, glancing at her so briefly that if she'd blinked she would have missed it, before he pulled a clean shirt on over his head. He wanted to leave – badly – she could see that. He started to say something and she almost put her hands up over her ears, regretting everything already... she didn't want this to make it worse.

Instead, he crossed the room to her, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. The filth that she felt that was clinging to her seemed to melt away, even when he pulled back and walked out. She curled up under the blankets for a while longer, listening to the kitchen door open and close.

She drifted off again, but woke up before Paul came back inside. She dressed and had just entered the kitchen to make some coffee for herself when Paul, Nick and the boys came in, in one big group, followed by Eddie, hauling camera equipment.

Tom and Barry disappeared almost immediately up the stairs to their room for some much needed privacy that they hadn't gotten the entire time in the hospital. Nick didn't make any snide comments towards her and when she caught Paul's eyes, she didn't feel guilty like she thought she would.

They never really thought about it after that.


End file.
